Family Trees - Francois Weil

 Sub-title: A History of Genealogy in America

This was a fascinating read for me because it brought the arc of history to the story of U.S. genealogy.  The writer is a scholarly, respected historian.  He addresses the history of genealogy in the United States from the early pilgrims up to 2012, touching the edge of DNA research.

I plan to create a timeline to visualize the events and milestones in the growth of the subject over the decades.  A keeper for my reference shelf.

Quotes:

p 35 "...the exceptionally detailed genealogical record that the patriarch Josiah Chapin began in 1762 at age 92.."

p. 40 "In 1771 the publication of the Genealogy of  the family of  Samuel Stebbins..." Signaled change from family based genealogies to published family genealogies.

p. 131 "Turn of the [19th] century patriotic societies nationalized genealogy."

p. 186 "During the 1950's and 1960's ...archivist of the United States acknowledged that the most numerous single class of searchers were genealogists. In the early 1960's the head librarian [of Fort Wayne Public Library], Fred J Reynolds, increased the library's focus on genealogy...Reynolds persuaded the Newberry Library [in Chicago] to let him make two copies of a large proportion of its genealogical holdings.  He returned the originals and one coy to Chicago and kept the second.  At least 15,000 and perhaps as many as 30,000 books were thus added to the FWPL." 

Update: Created genealogy presentation titled "American Genealogy" 

Published: 2013  Read: November 2020  Genre: History